I did a bit of a summary of the role Ratatoskr would play in the story where humans avert Ragnarok because, as the people of Midgard, they have a vested interested in having it not be destroyed. As noted, though, it’s just a post about the role of Ratatoskr in said story, not the story as a whole.

While being stuck on most things (those three things, only two of which are actually story, cover two weeks) is just regular writer’s block, it occurred to me that with specifically Kim Possible stories I could be sabotaging myself by writing them beginning to end which I pretty much never do. So I tried a more open writing of scenes from Life After. They’re still arranged in chronological order, but there’s no attempt to fill in all the details. They started out kind of random, but by the end were in large part revolving around the character, not previously introduced, of Mags during the time when she is unconscious. As near as I can tell no one actually cares about this story, though.

A while ago I wrote about passing and why the entire concept it represents is a sign things are not what they should be, but it was buried in a larger post. I pulled out and reposted just the section on passing because it’s generally applicable and I didn’t feel it should only be seen by people who wanted to read a post about the possibilities offered by hypothetical speculative fiction settings.

I proposed a videogame, or rather a visualization mechanic that would be central to a game, called “Elephant in the Dark“. It’s kind of hard to explain briefly because it’s emphatically not about being blind but it is definitely about the main character not seeing. I guess the short version is it would be built around the interpretation and extrapolation (and copious errors) of someone very, very used to and reliant upon seeing, who has to rely on other senses (principally touch.)

In my vaguely regularly scheduled fundraising post I mentioned that a couple of upcoming expenses I’m unprepared for because of a reduction in my income. Those numbers came in. It’s hardly uncommon at this point, I seem to live from crisis to crisis, but I’m still afraid. The larger expense is to stay in my home, the smaller is to keep on having internet which is kind of my lifeline. I can’t cover either.

Also I dropped and damaged my computer, but the post about it is out of date because the most worrying thing (the primary hard drive for data stopping working) is no longer true.

Last chapter, Alessan had to deal with the reality of enforcing a quarantine when others want to go back home, or at least anywhere but here. For now, the peace is holding together.

Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern: Chapter VII: Content Notes: Patriarchy

(3.11.43)

The narrative structure of this book appears to be intentionally switching between the perspectives of the main characters and replaying the same day from all perspectives before moving forward. For this kind of style to work, each perspective has to contribute to the narrative so that a complete picture only appears after all the points of view have been gone through. The last time we saw Moreta, her part consisted mostly of going around and talking to people and repeating the message on the drums. Alessan, as we saw, has to deal with fallout and logistics.

The narrative has cycled back around to Capiam, the Masterhealer, who awakens with a horrible headache, partially in response to the drumming, but mostly because he might be infected with the plague. As he goes for fellis juice to help numb the pain, he realizes that his heartbeat has sped up and he’s starting to sweat from the strain of sitting up, standing, and walking to get and prepare the medicine. This does not bode well for the Healer.

He had had too much experience with sleepless nights and tight schedules to chalk up his condition to such things. He groaned again. He didn’t have time to be sick. He ought not to have contracted the damnable disease. Healers didn’t get sick. Besides, he’d been so careful to wash thoroughly in redwort solution after examining each person.
Why didn’t the fellis juice work? He couldn’t think with the headache. But he had to think. There was so much to be done. His notes to organize, to analyze the course of the disease and the probability of dangerous secondary infections, like pneumonia and other respiratory infections.

Proper washing is a good thing, but it seems like somewhere along the way, the infection prevention mask would have made a most useful appearance. Especially to a profession that had explicitly name-checked viruses in the beginning of the book. They could look like the hooked bird beaks of Terran history, for all we care, but it seems like they should be there, at least for the doctors.

Also, throughout this chapter, Capiam seems remarkably sanguine about the possibility that he could be dead in four days’ time, and for someone who has a headache and fever that is apparently interfering with his ability to think. I’m sure that some part of medical training, especially for people who would be joining an organization like MSF, is about the possibility that the protocols might fail, or that the situation is potentially bad enough that they might die, but Capiam seems to have an astoundingly iron will for someone confronted with this disease.

Desdra, a journeywoman, comes to check in him, informs him that the incoming messages are a flood all asking for him and to ask if he needs anything to help him combat the disease. He leaves her instructions about nobody coming near him and about making sure nobody who has a chance of infection comes back to the Hall, since Capiam appears to be the only person infected at this point.

I find it more of the background misogyny that the person sent to check on the Healer is a woman, but perhaps the majority of Healers are women (who are then headed by a man, because again misogyny).

Anyone who was at either Gather and returns here -”
“Which was forbidden by your drum message -”
“Some wise-ass will think he knows better … Anyone who comes is to be isolated for four days.
[…]
I shall keep notes on my symptoms and progress. They will be here…in case…”
“My, we are being dramatic.”
“You’ve always maintained that I’d die of something I couldn’t cure.”
“Don’t talk like that, Capiam!” Desdra sounded more angry than fearful.
[…discussion of sleeping apprentices…]
“Tell Fortine, will you, Desdra, that sweatroot has no effect and provides no relief. In fact, I think it is counterproductive. That’s what they were using in Igen and Keroon for the first stage of the illness. Tell Fortine to try featherfern to reduce fever. Tell him to try other febrifuges.”
“What? All on the same poor patient?”
“He will have patients enough for the different remedies.” Capiam spoke from wretched certainty. “Go, Desdra. My head is a drum tower.”
Desdra was cruel enough to chuckle softly. Or maybe she thought she was being sympathetic? One never knew what reaction to expect from Desdra. That was part of her charm, but she’d never make Master on the strength of it. She spoke her mind and sometimes a healer had to be diplomatic. She certainly didn’t soothe Capiam. But he was relieved she was in charge of him.

Okay, we really need to have a discussion here. Just how advanced is the knowledge of healing in the Sixth Pass compared to the Ninth? Pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses? Febrifuges? The Sixth Pass has still had almost 1500 years to forget things and their terms or develop new ones. Yet we continue to have an apparently mostly static language that, at most, seems to be borrowing from German’s ability to smash together words to generate new ones. I can’t really believe that, and the presence of a word like “wise-ass” completely wrecks it. As far as we know, Pern has no donkeys (plenty of asses, though, and they all seem to be in charge), so there’s no reference frame for any sort of ass, wise or otherwise. Linguistic drift should have removed the word by now, and some other phrase (“Some herdbeast that thinks he’s a runner”) should have taken its place. And all of these lovely Latin and Greek words of medicine have also survived, instead of being replaced by more local equivalents. Healer records would have to be extensive for this to happen, and if they are that way, what sort of cataclysm happens between Sixth and Ninth Pass that the Ninth comes out so impoverished in knowledge?

Second, it appears the trend of “People in power who live near or in the Harper Hall are sexist, misogynistic assholes” dates at least back to the Sixth Pass, as Capiam puts on a fine show of “Desdra will never make Master Healer if she keeps being straightforward and honest about her opinions on matters” right next to “I’m glad the person taking care of me won’t try to bullshit me about anything” without noticing the glaring double standard there. If they were talking about her bedside manner, like “she always tells the truth in the most direct fashion possible, without taking into account what will get her patient to do what she wants”, then I can see Capiam’s objection to her manner. But he can’t criticize her for a no-bullshit attitude and then be glad for her no-bullshit attitude in the next sentence.

Plot-wise, Capiam lays down (“lays supine”) to try and get the symptoms to subside. The headache lessens, the heart racing doesn’t, and so Capiam gives himself a couple drops of aconite and manages to get to sleep. While he sleeps, the action shifts to Moreta, who is being roused from sheep by Orlith, concerned because Holth is upset, which has been precipitated by Sh’gall barging in on Leri and unloading his hysteria about the plague on her, because it kills the elderly first, while Leri says she needs to get information from the ground crews about who is stuck and who isn’t. She says she won’t get unnecessarily exposed, which Moreta confirms to Orlith, because she won’t actually get off Holth to do it. Considering the size of Pern dragons, it sounds logical.

Anyway, it’s a shouting match between Leri and Sh’gall when Moreta arrives, and she immediately fans the flames by accusing him of interfering with the queens’ wing and upsetting Holth and Leri. Seeing (and hearing agitated dragon rumblings) that things are about to spiral out of control, Leri reins herself in and then gets Moreta and Sh’gall to focus by drawing on the fact that she was senior Weyrwoman for twenty years and using her commanding voice to get them off the distractions. Leri gives instructions about the Threadfall tomorrow, inquires to the status of the two sick riders, and points out that the Weyrs still need Hold tithes and ground crews with Thread about. With one final tweak to both of them about how Leri is the expendable rider, she sends them both off to settle their dragons and everyone else while she continues her search of the Records.

And gives Moreta a neck strap for a riding harness that needs mending so that she has something to do. Which puts her in contact with dragonriders that need reassuring…and orders.

…We may have Fall tomorrow but I want no heroes. Headache and fever are the symptoms.”
“Then K’lon had the plague?”
“It’s possible, but he’s hale again.”
A worried voice came from the eastern side of the cavern. “What about Berchar?”
“Caught it from K’lon, more than likely, but he and S’gor have isolated themselves, as you are probably aware.”
“Sh’gall?”
An uneasy stir rippled around the cavern.
“He was fine ten minutes ago,” Moreta said dryly. “He’ll fly Thread tomorrow. As we all will.”
“Moreta?” T’nure, green Tapeth’s rider, rose from his table to speak. “How long did this quarantine condition last?”
“Until Master Capiam rescinds it.” She saw the rebellious look on T’nure’s face. “Fort Weyr will obey!” Before she finished that injunction, the unmistakable trumpeting of the queens was heard. No lesser dragon would disobey the queens. Moreta thanked Orlith for the timely comment.
[…orders distributed for the riders…]
An approving applause capped her restatement as she sat down, signaling that the discussion was at an end. Nesso stepped up on the dais with a plate of food.
“I think you should know,” she said in a low voice, “that all the drum messages sign Fortine as sender now.”
“Not Capiam?”
Nesso shook her head slowly from side to side.” Not since the first one this noon.”
“Has anyone else noticed that?”
Nesso sniffed in offended dignity. “I know my duty too, Weyrwoman.”

…aaand drum code gets a little stranger, in that everyone drumming apparently has their own signature measures, which means extra complexity for anybody who supposedly knows drum code. Yet Alessan complained a few chapters ago that drum code is too public for things like a quarantine demand, which suggests that enough people do understand drum code for it not to be the apparently complex thing that it is. I still can’t make heads or tails of the idea of what drum code is or how it sounds, and how Fandarel can adapt it for the distance writer.

Also, what’s the definition of a “lesser dragon”? Because if queens can control any other dragons, tell me again why the women aren’t running the place by basically telling the other dragons what’s going on? Presumably that control then also extends to the riders of those dragons, because big angry things make humans crunch and taste good with ketchup. I suspect, however, that bronzes are excluded from the “lesser” definition and only the browns, greens, and blues are bound by this thing with the queen dragons. That way the patriarchy of Pern remains undisturbed. (Also, I know that dragons will divert to keep the queen safe, but I think this is the first time we’ve seen this other ability. It was foreshadowed with Menolly’s fair and how Beauty kept them all in line, but there’s no guarantee an ability like that survives the transition from fire lizard to dragon.)

After this revelation of signatures, the action returns to a waking Capiam, who is missing a message to Telgar Weyr, but that’s all he knows because the disease symptoms are making it impossible to think, much less contemplate writing down his symptoms and their progression. And so the chapter ends with this basically useless paragraph, instead of in the potential hook of the reasons why Fortine is taking over the drum messages. It removes the potential suspense of Capiam being dead or severely incapacitated, more than we’ve already known from this chapter. The paragraph that ends this should be the first one of the next chapter that stays with Capiam for a while. Blargh.

Those of you who also frequent Ana Mardoll’s Ramblings will find this somewhat familiar. Here, as there, it was requested that there be a regular post to talk about writing projects (and other artwork-creation). Thus this post exists.

What are you working on? How are you feeling about it? What thoughts and/or snippets would you like to share? How does your activism work into your art? What tropes are you hoping to employ and/or avoid? Are there any questions you’d like to ask or frustrations you’d like to vent? Writing workshop below!

Hello! My name is Katherine and I am extremely happy to be here! I’m doing a sort of fanfic/re-write/decon of Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire, using Hermione Granger as the point of view character. You probably already know this, but it felt weird to put a whole chapter of writing up without even popping in to say hi first. Ok then, so the format of this is going to be fic first, decon afterwards. Also, this is going to go chapter-by-chapter, and I’m going to do my best to stick to the original timeline for reasons basically my own limited ability as a writer. I’ll get into more details after the fic, ok then, introductions over, let’s go!

Hermione Granger And The Goblet Of Sexism

Chapter One
The Part-Time Witch / The Riddle House

It was quite late, but Hermione Granger couldn’t sleep. She was sitting up, cross legged, in her bed, pouring over a spell book for the fifth time. The frustrating thing was, she had already memorized it, and she wouldn’t be able to get any new books until September. Her father had offered to take her to the library, but she couldn’t think of what good the muggle library could do her now. Anyway, it was just possible that she had missed something important.

Hermione Granger, you see, was a witch.

At fourteen, she was awkwardly growing into herself, she was tallish with long limbs she never knew quite what to do with, though all anybody ever seemed to notice about her was her bushy brown hair. There was a lot of it, and even though she often got mocked for it, it was one of the few things she really liked about herself. She refused to let her mother cut it, she wouldn’t even discuss it. It was the one thing they really disagreed on.

She was tired, but she couldn’t sleep. Wrapped in her soft dressing gown (in her favorite color, kerry green), she pushed her face closer to the pages of the large leather bound book, and willed herself to stay awake.

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Yes?”

It was her mother, “Hermione, do you happen to know what time it is?”

She did, but she shook her head anyway.

“It’s just past midnight, dear. I know it’s the holidays, and I know you’re growing up, but I do wish you would put that book up and go to sleep.”

“Mum, if I don’t study, I’ll fall behind, and you know verywell what will happen then! If I don’t prove myself, I’ll just look like a stupid muggle born, and I’ll end up with some tediously boring desk job.” she said it all in one breath.

“I know, dear,” Mrs. Granger heaved a heavy sigh, “but you’re only fourteen, and you deserve a break from that school. And you need sleep, remember what happened last year?”

Hermione lived two lives. During the school year, she attended Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where she studied spells, charms, arothmancy, magical creatures, and other fascinating subjects that pertained to magic. She slept in a castle dormitory and wore long, flowing black robes, every day as she went to and from her lessons. She took her meals in the cavernous great hall with it’s bewitched ceiling, and she spent her free time either in the library, or with her two friends, Ron Weasley and Harry Potter.

But during the holidays, she wasn’t a witch. Technically speaking she was always a witch, but during the holidays she wasn’t functionally a witch, seeing as how Hogwarts students weren’t allowed to do magic outside of school until they were of age. Instead, she was the only child of Mister and Missus Hugh and Jean Granger, and anything magical about her had to be kept secret. Contrary to what you might think, it wasn’t her parents who wanted her to keep her powers hushed up, they were actually rather supportive. Oh no. It was Wizarding Law. Hermione had had to learn right away that the wizarding world was just as filled with rules, corruption, bureaucracy, and downright nonsense, as the non-magical world. Her parents were allowed to know she was a witch, but telling anyone else about her powers risked violating the Statute of Secrecy and if she was found out, she would be expelled, or maybe even worse. Her first summer off, when she was twelve, had been alright, she’d never been away from home for so long before, and she’d gotten into a spot of bother with a dark wizard at the end of term (she hadn’t told her parents the half of it), and she was happy to be home. But since then, every holiday away from the school had been more and more trying for her. She hoped her parents didn’t notice, as she really didn’t want to hurt their feelings.

Hermione lived for magic. She breathed magic. She dreamed magic. It felt like the only thing that came naturally to her, the only task at which she wasn’t awkward and unsure. She had to be the best at it, she just had to.

The previous year, her desire to excel had been so great that she had signed up for more lessons than there were school hours in the day. She had been scolded, but had then persuaded her head of house to let her use a magical object — a time turner — to travel backwards through time every day, in order to make it to all her lessons.

“I still think you could have used that damn thing to get a little more sleep…” Mrs. Granger was saying.

“Mum!” Hermione pushed her hair up out of her eyes in exasperation, “I’ve told you a thousand times, it was only approved for LESSONS!”

Perhaps Mrs. Granger and her daughter disagreed on rather more than hair styles, afterall.

The fact was, Jean Granger was an intensely practical woman, and also intensely protective of her daughter. She was proud, to be sure, of her budding young witch, but whereas her husband beamed endlessly about his daughters accomplishments (often without fully understanding them), Jean Granger saw the stress the magical world put on Hermione. She worried about her, especially since Hermione had taken to skipping family holidays in order to stay at school and work even harder during her time off.

But the previous summer they had taken that trip to France, as a family, and that had been nice. Hermione has brought oodles of homework along with her, but still it had been nice.

Hermione was still looking downward at her book. She could feel her mother’s brown eyes looking at her from the doorway. She loved her mother, and wanted to please her, but all the same she really wanted to memorize this chapter before going to bed. She couldn’t afford to fall behind.

There was a long silence, as the summer night wore on around them. After what felt like an age, mrs granger broke it.

“Well,” she said, as hermione still gazed determinedly at the page before her, “if you’re staying up, I’ll put the kettle on. Would you like tea, or cocoa, dear?”

“Tea, please.”

It wouldn’t escape her mother’s notice, Hermione thought, that she had chosen the caffeinated option. But then, as Mrs. Granger was a dentist, she didn’t really approve of sugar before bed, either.

“Alright then.” Mrs. Granger sounded sad, and suddenly Hermione noticed it, and felt a pang of guilt that was not unfamiliar. Her mother turned to leave the room, but in the doorway she turned back and said “next time you get an owl, let me know before you send it off. I’ve got something I need to send to that Mrs. Weasley.”

It was only after her mother’s footsteps traveled down the hall, and then down the stairs, that Hermione allowed herself to look up. She stared through her tangles of hair at the open bedroom doorway. How many times had her mother stood there over the years, just to talk? Now they literally lived in different worlds, and though her parents tried, they could never really understand what it was like to be a part-time witch. She missed the closeness she had felt with her mother when she was younger, and the security and safety she had felt in her own home. These days, she didn’t quite feel at home anywhere. Was that because of the odd back-and-forth nature of her life? She wondered. Or was it simply one of those odd facts of growing up.

Hermione Granger did not have anyone to ask.

She was still staring at the doorway, lost in thought, ignore the open book in her lap, when she heard the kettle whistle from downstairs.

***

Deconstruction and Notes on The Source Text

Righto. I’m re-reading the book as I go here, and though I remember it pretty well (for years the only way my insomnia would pass enough to allow me to sleep was by listening to familiar audiobooks at bedtime, and if you’re not familiar Stephen Fry does a fantastic reading of the Harry Potter series, I highly recommend it) it’s still interesting to be seeing it through a totally new lens. One of the reasons I really wanted to do this project was that as I shared this truly amazing article by Sady Doyle and began to talk about it again, I realized that despite her status Hermione is a really poorly developed character. We only ever really see her from a male perspective.

My first thought was that this is probably because of course Harry is the point-of-view character. However, J.K Rowling manages to show us other character’s inner workings a bit. We know a little something about what motivates Ron, for example, or even Lupin and Sirius to some degree. What do we know about Hermione? She’s bossy. She has brown hair. It’s bushy. We don’t know her parents first names or how she gets along with them. We don’t know her favorite color. We don’t know how she felt when she got her Hogwart’s letter (though we do hear other muggle born students discuss those feelings!) and we don’t know if she was as good a student at her muggle school as she is at Hogwarts. We don’t know if she has muggle friends she has to hide her powers from.

And in thinking about the many, many, things that I wish I knew about Hermione Jean Granger, I realized that I’m most interested in her in book four. In The Goblet of Fire, for the first time, Hermione Granger is sexualized. I’m not going to get into all of my thoughts and feelings about the events that take place later in the book here, that’s why I’m doing the whole damn book. But, it does seem to me that her sexuality is used against her, and for the benefit of others, and she is portrayed as mysterious and other.

I didn’t read this book until I was an adult. But I wonder how that must have felt, must still feel, to all the brainy 14 year old girl’s reading this book.

All of that is to say, in the original book, Chapter One is “The Riddle House” and Hermione Granger isn’t even mentioned. Which is fine, Harry Potter is the point-of-view character and I don’t think I’m angry about that. What happens in “The Riddle House” is that Harry has a dream/telepathic vision of Lord Voldemort (which doesn’t make a lot of sense, because the dream is from the POV of an old man rather than Voldemort himself, but supposedly Harry is only having these visions because he’s accidentally reading Voldemort’s thoughts/feelings so what the actual hell). Voldemort discusses his recent activities and his future plans in a vague way that makes for some decent foreshadowing.

Rather than try to tie those activities in with Hermione in some way, I’ve used the space for a little bit of character development, and for something that the original book doesn’t seem to have even considered: Hermione’s relationship with her mom.

One final note! J.K. Rowling uses some devices that I frankly find a little bit annoying (even though I love these books so so so so much). She is very very fixated on certain physical characteristics of each character (with Hermione, it’s all about hair!) and she does a really unnecessary amount of recap at the beginning of each book. Because this project is about looking at the story from a different perspective, rather than trying to “correct” some of these stylistic quirks, I’m playing into them as best I can. The idea is really to try to stab at what these books would look like — with their flaws — if Hermione were centered rather than Harry. Whether or not I’ll be able to keep it up remains to be seen.

For various reasons we won’t have a “This Week in the Slacktiverse” post this week, so next week week (the coming weekend) will be “These two Weeks…”

As a reminder, here are the categories for submissions:

The Blogaround

Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website since they last submitted to a weekend post is invited, enticed, and cajoled to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to the group email. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.

Remember, this is since you last submitted to a weekend post, not since the last weekend post. For example, if the last time you submitted was a month ago, everything you wrote since then is fair game.

In Case You Missed This

Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers. These should be sent, as you might expect, to the group email.

Things You Can Do

Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to the group email.